Capture
by Distopia
Summary: ‘Was it worth it?’ A grim smile twisted his mouth, and she took a step back, unnerved buy the shadow in his eyes. ‘You’d like me to say yes, wouldn’t you.’


Series: Pokemon

Genre: General/Drama

Author: Aethyrial Flame

Summary: 'Was it worth it?' _A grim smile twisted his mouth, and she took a step back, unnerved buy the shadow in his eyes. _'You'd like me to say yes, wouldn't you.'

Disclaimer: Obviously, I don't own pokèmon, only the un-named OC mentioned here… and maybe her brother…

Have you ever wondered how everyone manages to start off with a Legendary? Maybe it's a family heirloom, passed down through the generations… Or not. Have you ever thought about how those Legendaries where _actually_ caught?

Harsh pants echoed in the darkness.

Clutching a ragged cloth to her wound, an exhausted teen crouched behind an outcropping of stone, shoulder slipping against the slimy rock. Feet braced beneath her, she held herself tense, body shaking with weariness.

Slowly, she could feel her extremities numbing, tiny, hot prickling needles stabbing her limbs. Dragging a shaky hand across her forehead, she let herself fall to one knee, damp, straggling strands of hair falling limply about her face.

Carefully, she eased herself around the jagged edges of the rock, flinching as a sonic blast whistled narrowly past where her face had been. Biting her lip hard enough to draw blood, she shifted her grip on the cloth, grinding it roughly against her wound.

The sharp, whitefire starburst of pain left her reeling, breath coming in short, rapid pants that rapidly sent her down the dangerous path of hyperventilation. Pressing herself against the rock, she closed her eyes once more and took a deep, controlled breath, gathering her courage.

Lurching forward, she shot out from behind the rock and staggered into a run, aiming for a slightly larger edifice, some ten metres distant. Heart thundering in her ears, she wove a drunken course over the loose rock and shale, wincing as sharp pebbles tore at her bare feet.

Gasping for oxygen, hunched over as an unearthly BOOM shook the cave and her footing proved unstable, she threw herself in the direction that she hoped led to freedom.

Panting once more, lungs afire, she frantically patted her waist, where a grimy belt held six scratched and scuffed pokèballs. Mouth tightening into a grim line, she shifted her weight from one foot to another, muscles sore and aching with a dull, throbbing pain.

Then she lobbed one out from behind the rock, and her faithful companion leapt into battle with a thunderous roar, one which shook the already unstable cavern ceiling even further.

"Arcanine- Fire spin, now!"

Dragging herself out from behind the rock, she scrabbled for another ball, and awkwardly tossed that, also. And then another, and another, and another, until all six of her companions stood before her, tense and awaiting her command.

The beast screamed in rage, and she took a shuddering breath, awkwardly propping herself up on a outcrop of stone, hating her treacherous body as it trembled under the strain.

"Everyone, Double team, Calm-mind and Swift! Espeon, follow up with Reflect, Ninetales use Firespin! Gengar, Nightshade and Grudge, Sneasel Blizzard and Agility!"

Forcing herself to stop for breath – she had so _little_ time!- she called out the moves she wanted her last pokèmon to use.

"Raichu baby, Lightscreen, Rain Dance and then THUNDER!"

She screamed the last few words, straining to make herself heard above the thunder of her heart, the crash and boom of attacks. Feverishly, her mind worked, and through a throat swiftly becoming raw she called out attacks, flinching in sympathy whenever her pokèmon took a hit that she couldn't prevent.

One buy one, they began to fall. Poor Espeon, delicate creature that she was, fell first, prey to the maddened Legendaries powerful Ice Beam. Rain Dance weakened Arcanine and Ninetales, a risk she'd had to take, and they fell next, but not before blistering the sea king with a potent double attack that left it burned.

Desperately moving from rock to rock as the Legendary unerringly attacked her at every turn, the trainer grasped a single ball in her hand, one which had taken her the past five years to get the money for.

Mouth tightened into a grim line, she waited for her moment.

Finally, there where only four beings left in the cavern; the Legendary pokèmon, Lugia; Gengar, ever present grin fading now; Raichu, panting and bleeding from a cut on his leg; and herself, dizzy from blood loss and straining to see the world through blurred vision.

She stumbled out into the open, and the Legendary mustered the energy to snarl viciously. Her thoughts, for a moment, dwelt on the critically injured pokèmon nestled down her shirt in their pokèballs, and she swayed a little, stumbling on sharp edged rubble.

"G-Gengar, Thunder, Raichu, Hyper Beam!"

At the sound of her voice, the blue grey head swung around to glare at her, and Lugia let out an unearthly screech as her pokèmon began charging their attacks. Screaming, the power of its voice rattling the cavern and causing yet another rockslide, it launched itself at the two pokèmon.

"NO!"

But her pokèmon, faithful to the end, launched their attacks dead on as Lugia ploughed into the two, burying them beneath its bulk. To exhausted to even cry, she staggered forward, wondering which Lugia to throw the Master ball at.

It swayed before her, great swans neck dipping through the air, and then blazing agony seared across her nerves as razor sharp teeth ripped through her leg. Panting harshly, she barely managed to toss the ball at the pokèmon, and she let out another scream as the pokèmon bit down even further, and the ball halted just before the Legendary.

Desperately, she scrabbled for rocks and began pitching them at the ball, hammering at the pokèmon's sensitive eyes with her other hand.

Buy pure, blind luck, a tiny pebble ricocheted from the ball, and it gently tapped the creamy underside of the beast. Both froze, staring at the little purple ball, and then Lugia vanished in a blaze of red light. Sobbing, vision greying at the edges, the teen crawled over the rocks towards the violently rocking ball.

And as her hand slid through the loop of the Escape Rope bound to her belt, it vanished.

---

"Oh WOW, you caught a _Lugia_?"

A child demanded, awe and incredulity clear in his voice. From her wheelchair, the teen gave a little smile, and nodded. About her neck, a thick silver chain lovingly clasped a tiny purple ball, and that ball swayed as she awkwardly turned her chair, moving across the crushed rock path.

Her brother and his gaggle of friends followed her into the backyard, chattering the whole while, watching as she came to rest before a towering oak tree, the thick green grass before it marred buy the disturbed earth of several graves.

On her lap, a tiny, delicate Espeon butted at her hand, demanding a pat, and the trainer did so idly, eyes glazed at she stared the head stones. Slowly, her other hand rose to the chain about her throat, before she flinched and wrenched it away.

"Hey, big sis! Hey!"

Jumping up and down impatiently, her little brother followed her as she made her slow, painful way inside. Espeon curled up, purring a little, the white scars crossing her body gleaming a wet, shiny pink in the evening light.

As it so often did now adays, the trainers mind went back to a time that seemed lost beneath decades, when her younger self had been nagging a weary, haggard trainer much in the same as her brother and his friends where doing to her now.

Silently, her lips mouthed the words from so long ago-

'_Was it worth it?'_

_The trainer looked at her for a long, long moment, and then back at the bloodstained ball he held tightly in one fist. She'd yet to see him let go of that thing, and it was slightly disgusting, his obsession with it._

_A grim smile twisted his mouth, and she took a step back, unnerved buy the shadow in his eyes._

'_You'd like me to say yes, wouldn't you.'_

_He twisted away, staring at some point on the horizon beyond the pokècentre's walls, and that hand spasmed over the ball it gripped so tightly._

'_No. It wasn't,'_

_Came his tight reply, and subdued, she watched with wide eyes as he got to his feet and limped away.'_

"Can we _please_ see it, just for a little while?"

Her hand automatically rose to clasp the ball, before she forced it away.

"No,"

She snapped, and ignored the hurt in her brother's eyes.

"No…"

She whispered, and the beast within the ball glared at her, and she saw her death in its eyes.


End file.
